Threenage Throes

But seriously, what’s with them?! How the hell are we meant to deal with them?! I’m not sure about the rest of you – but some days I’m wading through this mess with my head barely above water; constantly on edge, waiting for the next epic public meltdown.

This girl of mine..

Some days she’s amazing. Like, I-need-to-take-her-somewhere-public-so-I-have-witnesses-to-my-amazing-parenting-skills-and-resulting-perfect-child kind of amazing.

Like that time I stubbed my toe and she insisted I sit on the couch and rest while she “stands on a chair to do the dishes and vacuums the WHOLE town.”

Or when she makes ‘thank you’ and ‘get well soon’ cards to distribute amongst her friends and the community. She’s constantly picking flowers and gathering little treasures for her friends.

Even when I watch her with her baby sister – being all lovey-dovey and sweet. She is such a caring, thoughtful, considerate little girl; with a good sense of humor and excellent conversational skills.

Other days though, she is like firecracker, with the fuse already lit; only I never know how long the fuse is. And it’s really not a wonder we get frustrated with each other, when our conversations are like this:

3yo: I’m hungry, Mum.

Me: What would you like?

3yo: I’ll get what I’m given.

Me: *goes into kitchen and starts cutting fruit*

3yo: What are you making me?

Me: I’m going to make you a mixture of things..

3yo: NOOO! I DON’T WANT A MIXTURE OF THINGS! DON’T GIVE ME A MIXTURE OF THINGS! *collapses on the floor for full effect*

Me: Well what do you want?!

3yo: I JUST WANT WHAT I’M GIVEN!!

Or you know; we’ll be at the library singing nursery rhymes, and she wants to sit on my lap. I put the baby on a blanket on the floor and pick up the 3yo. We happily sing three songs before she starts squirming. I ask her gently, to please sit still as I don’t want to accidentally drop her on the baby. She wriggles with more force. I tell her that if she can’t stop wriggling, I’ll have to put her down. She keeps wriggling. I lift her off my lap and try and place her on the ground without causing a scene and ruining everyone else’s nursery rhyme experience. She lifts her legs so that her feet won’t touch the floor, and her voice has that tone. The one that come before the first shriek of the full-blown tantrum.

Or that time when I was heavily pregnant and we were in the electrical store. She’d had three warnings about not touching the display stock; I had to carry her out of the store while she kicked, screamed and yelled “PUT ME DOWN YOU YOUNG MAN!” at the top of her lungs.

She can be COMPLETEY unreasonable and meltdown over the simplest of things – for example: that time I called her bedside table a bedside cabinet. And yet, on other occasions I will be bracing myself for the full wrath and she’ll simply reply ‘oh’ and move right along.

I CLING to those moments of reason (and to my glass of wine) and hope like crazy that we make it through this stage with a little bit of sanity left.